


Wicked Game

by YoroiNoKyojin



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 00:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21499165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoroiNoKyojin/pseuds/YoroiNoKyojin
Summary: An emotional, post-TLJ Reylo one-shot, based on the song Wicked Game by Chris Isaak.She was the light. He was the dark. Together, they were balance. It was a wicked game they played, a vicious cycle they had to break. Time to end it, once and for all.“What a wicked thing to do... to make me dream of you.”
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	Wicked Game

**Author's Note:**

> I based this fic on this LEGENDARY Reylo music video featuring a cover of the song Wicked Game. Here is the link: PLEASE give it a watch! https://youtu.be/CJbL9pkPmM4

**_Wicked Game_ **

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” 

Finn was looking at her with those puppy dog eyes again, and Rey hated it. Not because it was annoying or anything of the sort; but because it made her feel immense guilt. Guilt because she knew she’d have to watch those puppy dog eyes reflect the hurt he’d feel when she said no. She forced a smile. “I’m not hungry,” she declined, before quickly adding — “thanks though.”

That had been the fourth time this week that she’d refused to join her fellow Resistance fighters — people she called friends — for meals. Rey found herself increasingly cutting herself off from them, even Finn; her desperate attempts to shield herself from Ben’s watchful and almost predatory gaze had resulted in the young Force user alienating  _ everyone.  _

As Rey wandered the small Resistance base in search of her humble room, she spotted some Utapauans mourning over a burning grave. Leia stood with them, her head bowed solemnly and apologetically. Ever since the remnants of the Resistance had come to Utapau in search of refuge, they’d had to fend off various attacks from hunters or natives who’d caught the new scent. Thankfully the First Order hadn’t found them yet — but it was only a matter of time. And the Utapauans had lost more than one of their own in their generosity. Rey could feel the wavering in the Force. Life and Death. But now there was… nothing but death.  _ So much death.  _ The Force was unbalanced. Surely  _ he  _ could feel it, just as she did. Surely he could see the consequences of the path he chose…

_ < The world was on fire, and nobody could save me but you. > _

She hated him for what she’d done. She  _ wanted  _ to hate him. Everything was wrong, the galaxy was all  _ wrong,  _ and it was  _ his fault —  _ but that the same time… she’d never felt so alive before. She’d never felt like she belonged anywhere, never felt like she had a path to follow or a place to go home to — but he was there. And he was a part of her. Whether she liked it or not. And Rey had a grim feeling that no matter how she tried to shut him out… eventually he’d find his way back in.

She could hear him whispering to her, sometimes. Though she forcefully closed the door on her side of their Force connection, his was wide open. She could feel him seeking her. Silently pleading. Still offering his hand to her. Despite everything. Despite her rejection and scorn. 

Why?

_ < It’s strange what desire will make foolish people do… > _

  
  


But there were also times she felt his turbulent rage like a vortex of emotions roiling around inside her mind. It made her moody, apathetic, avoidant. And she hated it. Mostly because she knew that she was the cause of his anger. She knew the truth, even if he didn’t say it. Her rejection had hurt him, deeply. 

And they were both living in denial. He denied his destiny, and she denied that their destinies were permanently intertwined. The weight of it was crushing them both.

Rey lingered near the Utapauans’ funeral for a few moments, feeling her heart growing heavier with each passing moment; these poor beings didn’t deserve this. They didn’t deserve any of this. Rey remembered reading about the utter chaos and disarray that had followed the fall of the Empire. They were ruthless tyrants, to be sure, but were the rebels any better? Rey had been so sure of their cause in the beginning. Now, seeing all this death and destruction -- caused by not only the First Order, but the Resistance, too -- she wasn’t sure of anything. 

All she knew was that the war had to end, and the balance attained. She saw it now, after all this time; darkness. Light. The Force. It was a balance of things, and too much of one was never a good thing. More and more Rey got the feeling that she would need to settle her score with Ben, once and for all… and that he was the other side of the coin. That she needed him, and he needed her. Dreams, or visions, she wasn’t sure, plagued her at night; of Ben's future. Of their future, _ together. _ Of the next generation. All the things she'd seen, the things she'd told him about on the elevator... they continued to haunt her. She knew they would come true. But for the life of her, Rey couldn't figure out how the hell they would happen at this point. 

_ < I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you. > _

All she  _ did _ know was since that day on Takodana, since the moment she fired that blaster and he deflected it, things had never been the same. 

Rey retreated to her room and slid the door shut, pressing a button to activate the locking mechanism. Nothing short of someone blowing the door down could disturb her now. Sitting cross-legged on her small mattress and setting her hands on her knees, she closed her eyes and tried to meditate just like Luke had taught her — one of the  _ very few _ things he'd taught her before everything went to hell.  _ Stubborn old goat, _ she thought, frustration rising within her. She'd been too busy mourning his passing, trying to hold the fragile Resistance together, and blocking out Ben to let herself feel her own emotions.

Rey found that she was...  _ angry. _ Luke had failed her. In the end, he'd sacrificed himself for the Resistance. But he hadn't taught her what she needed to know. He hadn't trained her to become a true Jedi. He hadn't helped her understand this new power she had inside of her...

He'd left her alone, and with unending questions. 

_ "But you're not alone," _ she heard that voice in her head. Was it him? Rey opened her eyes to find that she was still alone. No... the Force hadn't connected them. It was just her own memory, taunting her.

_ < I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you... > _

Rey grabbed the small feather pillow at the head of her mattress and threw it viciously across the room. She stood, beginning to throw everything in her reach. Anger, anger, anger, sweltering inside of her, filling her chest with white-hot rage and boiling the blood in her veins. She couldn't tell if this was Ben's anger or her own, anymore. She was lost, and confused, and alone, and —

"It feels wrong, doesn't it...?"

Rey whipped around and he was there, solid and clear, standing in the corner of her room. Lack of light cast dark shadows over his features; he looked like a demon, lurking in the corner, ready to strike. Her brows furrowed and she mentally prepared to block him out, but hesitated. She realized what she'd been doing just then, as her eyes roamed the mess in her room.

She was just like him.

_ < No, I don't want to fall in love... > _

  
  


"Why are you here??" she demanded, her voice tight with anger and disdain.

"I felt it," he replied, his voice soft... like a snake. His dark eyes glittered with emotion; but she wouldn't be fooled. She couldn't. He was playing her. He wouldn't turn, he was beyond hope, he was evil incarnate and killing him would set everything right in the world. Killing him would balance the Force, wouldn't it?

But even as the thoughts crossed her mind, Rey knew none of that was true. 

She grit her teeth, waiting for him to stop giving cryptic answers and be straight with her. He did. "I felt your emotions. They felt so much like my own that I... wasn't sure, at first. But I reached out, and..."

"... and here you are," Rey finished with a scowl. "Now you can leave."

"I can't," he responded, not having moved an inch from his spot. But his eyes, dark and intense, never once left her face. "I can't."

_ < No, I don't want to fall in love... > _

Whether it was Ben's response or their mixed emotions fueling each other's rage, she didn't know, but Rey could feel her blood boiling. "It can't be hard!" she yelled at him, taking a step toward him with clenched fists. "You've betrayed everyone who ever loved you; LEAVING them should be the obvious choice!!"

His eyes followed her as she moved closer; the only sign of his own anger was the twitch of his lip and the hardening of his eyes. His own gloved hands were in tight fists as well. He stared at her for a long, silent moment, the tension between them mounting. Finally, he burst. "YOU ARE THE ONE WHO LEFT!"

_ < ... with you. > _

Rey's eyes widened. Even with her own anger roiling in her chest and warming her veins, being faced with the magnitude of Ben's rage was... frightening. She could feel every emotion through their Force bond; anger, dismay, fear... pain. Her thoughts were confirmed: her rejection hadn't angered him — it had _ cut  _ him. "You  _ have _ to realize I couldn't just  _ join  _ you!" she growled, feeling her hands shaking at her sides. Shaking from the effort of not slapping him, or not holding him, she wasn't sure. Everything was confusing. Everything was a mess. "This — what the First Order is doing — it isn't right!"

His eyes narrowed dangerously and his voice lowered into a seething hiss. "Letting Utapauans sacrifice themselves for the Resistance... taking advantage of their hospitality and getting an Outer Rim world involved in a war that's not their own... trying to recruit others to a lost cause... to lay down their lives for a pointless battle... that's right, to you?" His dark eyes flashed. "That's the kind of cause you'd join??"

Rey pursed her lips, trying her best to disguise her shock and fear. She'd been unsure of the Resistance's path for some time now. Was he genuine? Or was he simply trying to use her own uncertainty against her? And  _ furthermore... _ Rey clenched her jaw to keep it from dropping open. Ben had known where they were this whole time? How long had he known? And why hadn't he sent a thousand TIE fighters down to demolish them? In one fell swoop, the Resistance could be destroyed. Rey's first instinct was to escape this Force connection and go warn the others. To tell them to get the hell off his planet, and _ fast. _ But if he'd known this long... surely... 

A glimmer of hope wormed its way into her heart, and she silently cursed him. Cursed herself.

_ < What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way... > _

"And you think that having a new Empire will solve all the problems in the galaxy??" she demanded, staring up at him with furrowed brows and frenzied hazel eyes. "You think that ruling with an iron fist will bring  _ peace?!" _ Still that hope persisted, though she tried to snuff it out. Her shoulders, tense and rigid, lowered slightly and her gaze softened. "Do you think that ruling everything and everyone will heal your heart, Ben? Because it won't."

He stared at her with unblinking brown eyes for a long moment, and she could see the unbidden tears threatening to spill from them. She could see the way he clenched his jaw, ground his teeth, the way he pursed his lips to keep them from twitching. She could feel his intentions in the back of her mind. Her eyes darted down to his clenched, shaking hands, the way he held them rigidly at his sides to keep from grasping at her. That angry tension dissolved into... something else. Something much more complicated. 

Rey found herself straining not to reach out, too.

_ < What a wicked thing to do... to let me dream of you. > _

"Please," she found herself pleading. Damn him. Damn herself. Damn it all. Damn her own heart for letting her feel hope again. Rey took a step further, closing what little distance they had left between them; she tilted her head back to gaze up at him, trying to blink back her own tears. It didn't work. "You can't heal alone. You're not alone. You'll never be alone."

Slowly, she extended a hand.

Dark eyes darted anxiously from her face to the bare hand she offered to him. For the first time, he looked almost like a wounded animal rather than a vile murderer; only... no. This wasn't the first time she'd seen that look. His expression had been the same in the throne room, when he'd asked her to join him. He'd made himself vulnerable to her, and she'd left him behind.

But she had to. He had lost his way. Now, she believed, he was on the verge of finding himself. Of finding true balance. And the thought brought an idea to her mind. Rey's gaze locked on Ben's face as he considered, holding his breath. 

"I..." his voice was shaky, crumbling. Upon a closer look, Rey noticed his large, bulky frame was shaking like a leaf... as if he could see salvation right in front of him, but was afraid that it was an invitation to hell. Finally, his eyes lifted back up to her face, blood-shot and frantically wide. "I've never... I've never felt like I had a home," he finally murmured. 

_ < What a wicked thing to say; you've never felt this way... > _

Rey swallowed the lump forming in the back of her throat, blinking back more tears. Her hand began to quiver even as she continued to offer it. "I haven't either," she whispered, voice unstable. "But I saw... I saw your future. I saw  _ our _ future."

His eyes locked with hers, molten brown on glimmering hazel. He pulled his glove off with one hand, using the other to slowly extend it. When their fingers touched, she felt everything and nothing, all at once. The Force, living all around them, energy, life and death. His heartbeat. She could feel it in syncopation with her own, both different and the same; his breaths were shaky, violent; his skin was flushed. Their emotions mirrored each other. She could feel every part of him, and he, her; they were one living breathing thing, two sides of one coin. Light and Dark. She'd never felt such an intimacy before; something so intense and frightening and exciting and  _ alive.  _ And she could feel it emanating from him, too. 

They were one.

And then he disappeared.

_ < What a wicked thing to do... to make me dream of you! > _

Rain. Endless torrents of it, soaking everything. Rey slipped on the slick metal surface of the ruined relic she traversed across, but she found her balance and continued on. In the distance, across the large platform and through sheets of rain, she saw a big black spot. She  _ felt  _ it was him, through the Force. 

Here on Kamino, on top of the ruins of the old Death Star, it would end. Waves crashed on either side of her, but she paid no attention to them, or to the Aiwha screeching in the distance; her sights were set on him. She had made the decision to end this — to end his life, end the first order, and figure out where to go from there. 

But as soon as she got close enough to see his face, Rey hesitated. The rain had already soaked him to the core, black strands of hair plastered to his face. But his eyes were intense and dark and full of heat. She felt like she might burn to a crisp under it. Rey knew then and there she wouldn’t be able to deal the final blow. 

It would kill her.

_ < No, I don’t want to fall in love! > _

Her brows furrowed and she shouted over the roar of the crashing waves. “WHY?”

He stared down at her. One hand firmly gripped the handle of his saber, but didn’t ignite it. Rey waited for an answer. When she received none, her grip on her own saber, fully repaired, tightened. “Why did you disappear?! We…”

His lips pursed in an effort not to tremble. Something wet rolled down his cheeks. Rey couldn’t be sure if it was rain or tears… but he did not answer. He rained infuriatingly silent. In a fit of rage, Rey activated her saber, and in a split second the two blades clashed, hissing and spitting steam. Rey watched him through the glow of their tangled weapons, and saw the anger in his eyes. The pain. The guilt. She could feel those emotions through their Force bond, mirroring her own. 

Was this how it would always be? Longing, rejection, guilt, pain, and longing again…? A cycle of love and pain? A place of belonging and of betrayal?

_ < No, I don’t want to fall in love! > _

He pulled back, only to strike again, and their duel began — vicious, quick, fueled by hatred. 

Was hatred really all that different from love?

Ducking under a wide swing, Rey took his brief opening and kicked him in the stomach, hard, sending him skidding back. She brought her saber down on him with all she had, but it was swatted away and their frenzy began anew. This was hopeless. They had to break this cycle. Nothing would change. This would repeat until they died. Unless… 

A nagging thought came to her mind, unbidden. This thought had occurred to her many times, but she had been too sure of her goal, of the path she was on, to even consider it. But now…

“Ben!” Rey cried, their lightsabers clashing once more. The steam coming from them clouded her vision but she could still his eyes, dark and glittering as he watched her. There was intention, resignation in his gaze. He was filled with that rage, that anger, and his willpower was a crushing weight through their Force bond. Would words be wasted on him…?

Continue the cycle… or take a leap.

_ < No, I don’t want to fall in love! > _

Suddenly Rey pulled back and extinguished her lightsaber. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she waited for his reaction. “Ben…” she murmured.

He stared at her with bulging, predatory eyes, his ignited saber still crackling and hissing in his hand. She could only remember when they touched; how she felt like she was… whole. Like she belonged. Rey hadn’t asked for this. She hadn’t wanted any of it.

But now she couldn’t possibly imagine having stayed on Jakku. 

“None of this has to happen,” Rey finally said, her voice notably calm despite everything she was feeling inside, despite his own roiling anguish emanating through their bond. “I know what we have to do… together.”

His grip on his lightsaber tightened and he locked his jaw. Rey pressed on, taking a brave step closer to him. Her eyes beseeching. Pleading. “The Force… it’s  _ balance _ . Both Light… and Dark. Ben… you and I… we must…”

His eyes narrowed, his voice right. “We must  _ what??” _

Rey reached up, wrapped her hand around his own, the one holding his saber. The touch made him flinch; through a curtain of drenched black hair, he stared at her with intense eyes. She could sense the conflict. The questioning. And still that ever-present anger.

“We are not enemies, and this is not our war,” Rey bravely said. “I’ve seen your future… and it is with  _ me.”  _ Rey gazed up at him imploringly. “We are the future. The Force binds us. Ben…”

His eyes darted downward to the hand she extended once more. A silent offering. A plea. “What are you saying?” He hissed. 

“Come with me. Leave everything behind.” The more Rey spoke, the more she believed in her words. She was not a Jedi, and he was not a Sith. They were something else entirely. They were two halves of a whole.

They were  _ balance. _

_ < No, I don’t want to fall in love… > _

For a long moment, his eyes moved from her hand to her face and back. Then he locked eyes with her and for the first time, she felt his anger fade. There was… reluctance,  _ fear.  _

But also... desire. She could feel it. He wanted to break the cycle too.

“Ben…  _ please.” _

The hand she’d extended reached up and grazed her fingers over his cheek. He shuddered under her touch, his gaze growing in intensity. She could feel his shaky breathing, his racing heart, the tremble of his hands.

He extinguished his lightsaber. 

Rey felt a hand cover her own as it rested on his cheek; he said nothing, gave no verbal answer, but his eyes told her everything she needed to know. He put his saber away, and her other hand went to the other side of his face, palm brushing over his scar. Their contact strengthened their Force bond; she could see him, and see herself  _ through  _ his eyes. 

She didn’t know where they would go, or what would happen, but she knew that if they worked together, not against each other, they could restore  _ true  _ peace and bring balance to the Force. 

They were  _ one. _

_  
< … with you. > _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
